


we spoke in flames (and held hands while we burned)

by heistsociety



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, annabeth is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-06-14 16:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15392406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heistsociety/pseuds/heistsociety
Summary: Annabeth Chase learns to grow up quickly. At 6 years old, her parents decide they no longer love each other and her world slips from fairytale to reality.At 7 years old, she stops believing in love. She stops expecting it from her father, has never expected it from her stepmother, stops hoping for it from her mother. Her arm remains empty while her classmates wake up to new ink every day. She thinks it might be better this way; the soulmate system has never worked, will never work. She's spent the last year doing research on it. Soulmates who don't love each other, who never find each other, who die, who leave each other and never come back.





	1. one.

**Author's Note:**

> wow hello! i've been working on this fic for almost a year and i finally finished it, and i'm so excited to share it. hope u enjoy!!

_"the girl with the ladybug backpack, bouncing to school on her own. too many lasts cloud her forecast. how do you face the world fully grown?" - kirstyn hippe, fully grown_

 

Annabeth Chase learns to grow up quickly. At 6 years old, her parents decide they no longer love each other and her world slips from fairytale to reality. 

Hope incinerates. Once upon a time, she spent her nights listening to her mother read her storybooks to sleep. It was the same, over and over and over. Knights rescue damsels from dragons and live happily ever after with the other halves of their souls. This is what Annabeth wanted. Her knight, her tattoo, her soulmate. Some nights, she asked to hear her parents' story, curving her finger over her mother's delicate tattoo. _Frederick_ , with a capital F, both ends swirling over Athena's arm. F for Frederick, F for Father, F for Family. Athena would smile and tell it, always in the same way.

_Your father and I met in college. I thought he was a charmingly eccentric man._

Annabeth wanted that too. The meet-cute, mundane life, the white Pickett fence, the 2.5 kids and the perfect husband. 

She knows now that it is a cracked facade. 

 

Her mother leaves when she is 7 years old, sends the divorce papers in the mail. Her father breaks down and Annabeth pretends not to notice for his pride. 

"Why did mommy leave if you were destined to be together?" Annabeth asks her father, a quiet whisper.

"Sometimes," her father answers, his voice fragile as glass, "the system is wrong."

Annabeth runs a hand over the still-blank canvas of her arm and silently hopes he is right.

 

Frederick doesn't read her bedtime stories. He works all day and crashes at night, barely remembers to eat dinner, let alone make it. At 6 years old, Annabeth Chase learns to become self-sufficient. Her father is trying his best. She knows he is. But it's not the same.

Athena sends no letters, makes no calls. She disappears, becomes nothing more than a ghost in Annabeth and Frederick's lives. Annabeth feels the missing piece in her family like a phantom pain. She asks the universe for her mother back, curled under the covers with her eyes to the ceiling. There are tears. There are always tears. She doesn't let them fall. 

The next year, her father remarries. Annabeth supposes she should be happy for him, but his new wife looks at her with disdain and her father never seems to realize. Annabeth has never felt so unwanted, like a stain on the white carpet of her father's new marriage.

Annabeth learns how to make herself unknown. She sneaks around in socks and makes herself scarce, except during mealtimes. Her stepmother doesn't say anything to her, not really, not ever, but the look on her face at the sight of Annabeth tells her everything she needs to know.

 

At 7 years old, she stops believing in love. She stops expecting it from her father, has never expected it from her stepmother, stops hoping for it from her mother. Her arm remains empty while her classmates wake up to new ink every day. She thinks it might be better this way; the soulmate system has never worked, will never work. She's spent the last year doing research on it. Soulmates who don't love each other, who never find each other, who die, who leave each other and never come back.

People who fall in love with someone whose name is not on their arm and reject their soulmate. This is frowned upon; non-soulmate relationships are taboo. Worse to Annabeth, though, are the people who leave their spouses and children because they meet their soulmate. 

She knows what it feels like to be not good enough for someone to stay. 

 

Love is a fractured, fleeting thing. It is a false line of code, a glitch in programming. Love, Annabeth knows, is not real. 

This knowledge does not keep Annabeth from falling for Luke Castellan. He is 7 years her senior with dusty blonde hair and a most charming smile. 

He's her neighbor. Him on one side, Thalia Grace on the other. They grow up together, intertwined in each other's lives. Luke's mother is spaced out half the time and his father died when he was little. Thalia's father left after her brother was born and her mother spends her time and money at the bottom of a bottle. They're all from damaged, destructions of families. 

Luke and Thalia promise her that they will always have each other.

"Our own little family," Luke says, smiling at her from the grass they lay on. "I won't ever leave you. Either of you."

"Promise?" Annabeth asks, holding her hand out to him.

Luke hooks his pinky around hers. "Promise."

 

Every ounce of Annabeth longs for the family that has faded to a sepia photograph in her memory. Thalia and Luke give her something to belong to and she sinks into that with ease. They become her home, her safety net. Annabeth, 7 years old, carefully allows herself to rely on other people. She has not yet given up hope on human nature. Her mother leaves, her father distances himself, her stepmother looks at her with undisguised disgust. A small ounce of her still believes in _people_.


	2. two.

_"we held our cards, built them high, but way too close to the light. so turn your head, and let us go, i'll learn to breathe on my own." - niall horan, paper houses_

 

Luke never talks about his soulmark. Annabeth doesn’t push him, but she knows he has one. Years of exposure to a person will eventually lead you to catching sight of their soulmark: a slipped sleeve, beachwear, truth or dare. It’s inevitable.

Annabeth can’t quite remember when she saw it, but the image is burned into her mind, clear as day. 

It’s not Annabeth’s name. It never will be, no matter how much she wills it. Logically, Annabeth knows it was always a long shot. Emotionally, it still hurts. 

It _is_ Thalia’s name. Somehow, it’s more painful to think that Luke’s soulmate might be someone she knows. She does everything to try to convince herself it’s not the Thalia she knows, couldn’t be that Thalia. The universe wouldn’t play a joke so cruel on her. 

(She’s not sure she believes that. The universe seems to have a personal vendetta against her, taking pleasure in breaking her down until she can no longer breathe.)

 

Annabeth finds out about Thalia’s soulmark when she is 8 years old. They’re curled up in Annabeth’s room, escaping the world in the form of fantasy novels. Annabeth looks up just as Thalia runs a hand through her hair and catches a peek at the ink on her wrist. 

An accidental squeak leaves her lips.

 _Luke._ The messy scrawl of his handwriting. She would recognize that anywhere. Annabeth didn’t even know that Thalia had gotten her soulmark yet, let alone that it was Luke’s name.

A strange bolt goes through Annabeth. She’s not sure what it is, but she feels irrationally angry at Thalia, like something is rotting the inside of her body.

Thalia glances over at Annabeth, surprised, and flushes in embarrassment when she realizes Annabeth has seen her soulmark. She covers it up hastily, but the damage is done. They’re left sitting in a silent room, unsaid words drifting through the air. Neither wants to be the first one to speak.

“It’s not what you think,” Thalia says finally. 

“You have your soulmark,” Annabeth says quietly. “It’s Luke.” It almost sounds like a question. Almost. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She can’t keep the hurt out of her voice. Thalia looks like she’s been stung, and a horrible part of Annabeth likes it. “It’s not like that,” Thalia promises, her voice shaky. “It’s not what you think.

Annabeth asks, even though she doesn’t want to know the answer, probably already knows the answer. “It is our Luke, isn’t it?” 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? His soulmark-“

“It’s complicated, okay?” Thalia looks frazzled, like she’s been caught in a spiral of lies. Annabeth’s chest twinges. “I know that we have each other’s names, I just... I don’t like him like that. I don’t like anyone like that. He’s- he’s like my brother, and I’m not sure he’ll understand that. I mean, do you?”

On one hand, Annabeth has spent a birthday wish and five dandelions on Luke Castellan. She can’t imagine a world where she could be his soulmate and be unhappy about it. 

On the other, she’s seen what soulmarks can do to people. They can rip people apart as much as they can bring them together. 

“Are you going to tell him?” Annabeth asks in lieu of an answer.

“I don’t know,” Thalia answers. “I- I’m not ready.”

Annabeth isn’t sure she understands this either, but she doesn’t push it. “Okay.”

The next time she looks up, there’s relief in Thalia’s eyes. 

 

Thalia finds a word for it: asexual. She decides that her soulmark must be a platonic one and decides to tell Luke.

Annabeth is quiet in all of this, a spectator, a bystander. She’s realized that this isn’t her story, her relationship to intrude on. She’s on the outside looking in.

And Annabeth, 9 years old, sits quietly in the corner when Thalia comes out to Luke.

“I searched it up. There are instances where soulmates can be platonic, and I think this is one of them.”

Annabeth sees her reflection in the fall of Luke’s smile. It’s an emotion she’s all too familiar with: heartbreak. She’s beginning to realize that everyone lets you down eventually. 

It’s clear to her now that Luke knew exactly who his soulmate was, and it’s clearer that he never wanted for it to be platonic. 

 

“I never wanted this,” Thalia tells her angrily. “I never asked for the universe to label me as someone else’s property. This is some cosmic prank, isn’t it? Luke is my best friend. I love him, but I’m not in love with him. He deserves to have someone. I’m just- I’m not that person and he can’t- I’m not going to be that person, no matter how much he tries to make me.”

 

“I guess I just had some fucking hope,” Luke laughs dryly, angrily. It’s dust in the desert, something Annabeth has never seen from him before. “That’s so ridiculous, isn’t it? The soulmate system fucks me up again and again, and I still-“ he exhales. “Shit. I should’ve known better.”

 

Thalia and Luke are the best people that Annabeth knows, and the soulmate system is tearing them apart, piece by piece. 

If that’s not injustice, Annabeth doesn’t know what is.

 

After that, being with Thalia and Luke is like being in between two sides of the Cold War. The air is filled with the crackling electricity of unspoken arguments and Annabeth never wanted to associate her friends with this sort of cruelty. 

Instead, she makes friends with some people in her own grade. There’s a boy named Grover - he’s a bit odd and nervous, but Annabeth enjoys his presence. They’re more school friends than anything, smile at each other in the hallways and talk about homework friends, but Annabeth’s repertoire is made out of those sorts of friends. She likes Grover more than most.

Grover is lanky and babbling, eats more than should be possible for how skinny he is. On his arm, in the neatest cursive Annabeth has ever seen, is the name _Juniper_. Grover wears it like a badge of honor, proudly but quietly. 

“There’s no point in hiding it, right?” Grover says. “We’re going to meet eventually. I want her to know who I am.”

Grover may be the kindest person Annabeth has ever met. He hasn’t had the world fall down around him again and again and again. He’s not like Annabeth or Thalia or Luke. He’s made of unfiltered hope, bursting with optimism.  He believes in soulmates, just not in the obnoxious way that everyone else does. He doesn’t think having a soulmate will fix every problem the universe throws at him. He just believes it will make those problems a little more bearable to face and a little bit easier to solve. The way he talks about it...

Annabeth had forgotten what it was like to blow out her candles and wish for her other half.


	3. three.

_"so don't lie to me. i know i'm not as cool as i'd like to be, but why do you feel so down? again, i know i'm not a very good friend. why do you feel so down?" - declan mckenna, why do you feel so down?_

 

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

 Annabeth sits at the table, finding x, y, z. She likes math because it has a set answer. There is no personal interpretation that leaves her wandering between the strings of the universe, trying to find something nonexistent. 

Her father runs to the phone.

_“Hello?”_

Get x on its own.

_“This is he.”_

Subtract five.

_“Yes."_

What you do to one side, you must also do to the other.

_“Oh, God.”_

Divide by two.

 _“Yes, yes that’s right_. _Yes. Yes, I’ll be right there. Of course. No, I have no idea how this- yes, of course I will.”_

And x is equal to-

“Annabeth?”

Annabeth looks up from her worksheet. At first, she’s annoyed at being disturbed, but her retort falters at the sight of her father’s eyes. They’re rimmed with red and a tremolo of panic rocks through his voice. “Dad?” She sounds small. It’s the first time she’s called him that in years. “What’s wrong?”

“I-it’s Thalia and Luke. They’ve been in a car crash. Thalia’s in a coma, and Luke- Luke’s dead. I’m sorry, Annabeth.”

The first thought Annabeth has:  _But that’s my_   _family_.The only thought.

And then... nothing.

Anything is better than apathy.

Annabeth is numb.

She’s not allowed to go to the hospital, but she’s allowed to go to the funeral. She wears a black dress and watches them lower Luke’s body into the ground and feels nothing, nothing, nothing. 

It wasn’t their fault. They were coming back from a party and Luke was driving. Sober. And then another car came barreling out of the darkness. Thalia’s mom. Drunk. 

Someone called the hospital, but it was too late. Both Luke and Thalia’s mom - dead on arrival. 

Annabeth wonders what sort of horrible, horrible person the universe would make hit a car with their own child in it. The universe is cruel. This is nothing new. Annabeth doesn’t have Thalia and Luke to face it with. This is something new. Annabeth doesn’t like it.

Perhaps this is her punishment. Annabeth can’t help but feel this might be her fault. She knew they were going to that party, she knew it was a bad idea. She should’ve stopped them, she should’ve said something, she should’ve-

From the corner of her eye, Annabeth spots someone she’s only seen in pictures. May Castellan is hysteric, as always, but the man beside her is stoic and stone-faced. Luke’s father. The man who left him like Athena left Annabeth.

He casts her a glance. Contempt. Annabeth would say something if she didn’t feel so empty.

As it is, she does nothing, because she is nothing.

_She should have done something._

Even Annabeth’s stepmother, pregnant and disdainful as she is, tiptoes around her after the funeral.

Not that it matters. Annabeth doesn’t speak to anyone but Grover and Thalia, and only one of them can hear what she has to say.

She talks to Grover strictly about school, and he never makes her talk about anything else. This is a relief from the questioning stares of her father and stepmother. She knows they have questions, but she won’t answer because they won’t ask. 

She talks to Thalia over the hum of the heart monitor, takes Thalia’s hand in hers and tells her about what’s going on in the world. She’s covered in bruises and tubes, eyes closed and mouth unmoving. 

Annabeth hates seeing her like this, and she knows Thalia would hate looking like this. Weak.

Thalia is anything but weak.

“Wake up,” Annabeth whispers at the end of each day. “Come back. You can do it, I know you can. Just come back. I’m sorry.”


	4. four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um also if anyone wants to beta this, i have the entire story finished i'm just not posting that often bc i don't want to edit and also i wrote this over the span of a year so the ending might not be that consistent, i would appreciate that so much.

_"help me, it's like the walls are caving in. sometimes i feel like giving up, no medicine is strong enough." - in my blood, shawn mendes_

 

Annabeth turns 12 years old a month after the car accident. Thalia’s still asleep. Luke’s still dead. She doesn’t celebrate.

Three months after that, a boy brings Grover, unconscious, to Annabeth’s front porch. 

“I’m sorry,” he says when Annabeth comes out to investigate. “He said your address right before he passed out, and I’m new in town so I didn’t know where else to go-“

Annabeth looks at him, takes in his tousled black hair and sea green eyes. He looks like he was sculpted by an Ancient Greek artist. She decides that she dislikes him immediately. “You’re lucky that I answered the door,” she answers simply, dragging her eyes from the boy down to Grover.

And Grover isn’t in great shape. There are purple-red bruises forming on his cheekbones and gashes on his arms. For a brief, terrifying moment, Annabeth is reminded of Thalia. “What happened?” She asks, and the boy is kind enough not to point out that the coldness in her voice has transferred to panic.

The boy winces. “We got jumped. They ran off in the end, but they left us some injuries. Grover got the worst of it.” 

Now that he mentions it, Annabeth can see the faint bruises on him as well, far smaller than they ought to be. Normally, Annabeth would comment on it, but her only sentient friend is lying on her front porch, so Annabeth’s priorities are a little different. She grabs one of Grover’s arms and tells the boy to grab the other. 

 

He looks confused. Hesitates. “Are you not going to...?” He gestures toward the house, and understanding hits Annabeth like a truck.

Her parents. They’re not home, of course. Her stepmother just had twins and her father has divided all his time between work and the hospital. “We’re not far from the hospital,” Annabeth says in lieu of an answer. It’s October and it’s a little cold, but they both have coats and Annabeth isn’t planning to tell him about her dysfunctional family. “Are you going to help or not?”

The boy doesn’t look too sure, but he grabs Grover’s other arm anyway. Grover’s not heavy - Annabeth probably could’ve carried him by herself - but the extra hand makes it a little easier. 

“I’m Percy, by the way,” he says as they begin walking. “Percy Jackson.”

With a start, Annabeth realizes that she hadn’t introduced herself to him. When had she become someone who blindly trusted anyone who appeared on her doorstep with her unconscious friends? 

(It was likely around the time she stopped thinking life was a worthwhile pursuit.)

“I’m Annabeth,” she answers, and says nothing more.

Somehow, Percy seems to get that she’s not in the mood to make conversation and says nothing else until they get to the hospital.

 

Grover’s fine. Or, he will be, at least. Annabeth and Percy drag him into the hospital and the doctors take it from there. Neither of them are allowed in the room, but they’re assured that Grover’s injuries aren’t serious. 

It’s a relief. Annabeth isn’t sure how well she would’ve handled losing another friend because she couldn’t protect them. 

The hospital calls Grover’s parents, who arrive a few minutes later, frazzled and worried. They thank Percy and Annabeth for bringing Grover in and promise that they can handle it from here.

“Go rest,” Grover’s mother tells them. “You both look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

Annabeth isn’t used to this: the gentle smile of a mother, the hearty laugh of a father. She’s used to stone-cold silence and an empty fireplace. If she tries, she can summon up the barest memories of her mother - a soft voice and grey eyes with an intensity to match her own - but _this_ , this is new. 

She misses her mother. She hates how weak that makes her feel.

 

Percy calls his mother in a few minutes later. 

Sally Jackson isn’t what Annabeth expects at all. Grover’s parents might be made of warmth and kindness, but Sally Jackson positively radiates it. Her smile reminds Annabeth of apple cider and home-cooked meals, of chocolate chip cookies and everything Annabeth hasn’t experienced in over five years since her mother slammed the door on her family and didn’t look back.

She asks if Annabeth needs a ride, and Annabeth tries to refuse. She doesn’t need anyone else’s help; she’s sufficient on her own. She doesn’t want to rely on someone else.

Somehow, Sally smiles and Percy smiles and Annabeth finds herself wanting to blend into this family dynamic for just a little bit longer. She wants to pretend that her mother is around and her father loves her and that the only people who were always there for her aren’t dead or unconscious.

She agrees to the ride and Sally takes her home in a tiny, beat up blue car.

“Blue’s my favorite color,” Percy explains as he gets into the front seat. Annabeth mulls this over in her mind. She’s not sure when the last time her parents regarded her favorite color as a decision-making factor was. She’s not even sure what her favorite color is.

She doesn’t say this. She doesn’t say anything. It’s easier to not get attached if she reveals nothing about herself. 

Percy manages to fall asleep on the five minute drive to Annabeth’s house; she wishes she felt safe enough to ever do that. He jerks awake when the car comes to a stop, startled and slightly disoriented. A small part of Annabeth wants to thank him for taking care of her friend when she couldn’t be there. He looks like he might be expecting a thank you, or something like that.

“You drool in your sleep,” she settles for instead, relishing in the way he blushes. His mom barks out a laugh, as angelic as anything else she’s ever done.  She’s compelled to smile as she climbs out of the car “Thanks-“ she glances at Percy’s mom, takes in her ringless finger and covered up soulmark, “-Ms. Jackson.”

“It was no problem,” Sally answers, smiling. “And call me Sally from now on.”

Annabeth doesn’t think she’ll ever see Sally again, but she smiles and nods anyway. She climbs out of the car, clenching her fists at the sudden bite of cold. She gets to her front door and turns around to wave, and they wave back, and Sally pulls out of her driveway as she turns her key in the lock and steps inside.

It’s a stark contrast from the warm interior of Sally’s car. It’s cold and dark; nobody noticed Annabeth was gone because nobody was even home. Her fingertips are numb and her nose feels like a block of ice, so she pulls her coat around her and numbly turns up the thermostat. Something about her house feels so abandoned, like it’s haunted by ghosts that flit their fingers across the dust-covered photos on the mantel. In a way, Annabeth supposes, it is. 

It’s haunted by the ghost of the girl on the mantel, five-years old and grinning with her gap-toothed smile. She’s so innocent, so happy, so safe. Annabeth doesn’t know how to be that girl anymore. 

It’s haunted by the ghost of the pictures in the attic, a blonde-haired grey-eyed woman stuffed inside an old cardboard box. 

As the house warms up and Annabeth discards her winter coat, her hand brushes over the empty block of space in her skin where almost everyone else has a name spelled in black ink like an extended imprint of their soul. 

Annabeth thinks of _Juniper_ in elegant cursive, _Luke_ in his messy scrawl. The tiny printed _Thalia_ that once brought her so much grief. _Frederick_ on her mother’s arm, _Athena_ on her father’s. Even her stepmother has a soulmark, though Annabeth has only seen little flashes of it under her perpetual long sleeved shirts. 

Loneliness isn’t a stranger to Annabeth. She welcomes it like an old friend.

She crashes on the couch and sleeps there until morning, wearing _alone_ like a second layer of skin. 


	5. five.

_"if being wrong's a crime, i'm serving forever. if being strong's your kind, then i need help here with this feather. if being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side. at the swingin' party down the line." - swingin party, lorde_

Percy starts at Annabeth’s school the next Monday. Grover’s back by then, too, as cheerful as ever. Annabeth isn’t completely convinced by his sunshine facade - he’s more shaken up than he lets on, she’s sure - but she resigns herself to just keeping an eye on him because he clearly doesn’t want to talk about the attack.

Percy’s arrival doesn’t make much of a dent in the school’s gossip. They’re used to new kids by now, though the girls in Annabeth’s classes do share whispers and giggles about how cute the new guy is.

If asked, Annabeth firmly denies seeing any resemblance between Percy and and the green-eyed paintings of Greek sea gods.

Annabeth doesn’t plan on having her path cross Percy’s at all - not his dumb jokes, his lack of common sense, and certainly not his stupid affinity for bravery. The only good thing about having Percy around is that Annabeth doesn’t have to worry about Grover’s safety anymore. Percy’s more than ready to jump to his defense in the face of bullies, teachers, and, as already established, any random attacks on the street.

(Annabeth refuses to think of him as a martyr. She won’t do it. She won’t, she won’t, she won’t. He’s not heroic, he’s just a 12 year old boy who can’t stay out of trouble.)

Unfortunately, the universe has a different plan. Percy is in almost every single on of her classes. He sits behind her in homeroom, next to her in science, diagonally across the table in math. It’s infuriating. Annabeth can’t escape him, no matter how hard she tries. 

Percy grins at her the first day of school when they find out they’re in the same homeroom. Briefly, she remembers Silena Beauregard likening his smile to the surface of the sun. _Hot,_ she’d said dramatically, making a sizzling noise with her tongue. 

Silena‘s met her soulmate already. Annabeth pushes the thought away and refuses to be coerced into smiling back, sending a scowl toward him and turning toward the teacher instead.

That afternoon, Annabeth goes to meet Grover outside after school and finds Percy already speaking to him. She tugs at the ends of her backpack as she approaches them. Grover is laughing at something Percy said, and Annabeth feels a twinge of annoyance at Percy’s easy sense of humor. 

She leans against the tree behind them and says, quietly, “Hey.”

They don’t hear her. She repeats, a little louder, “Hey.”

This time, Percy catches sight of her and raises an eyebrow. He’s still grinning, which is a little infuriating. “Hey,” he answers, causing Grover to turn around and smile at her as well.

“Hey. You mind if Percy walks home with us?”

Annabeth considers saying no just for the hell of it (the mindless chatter about Percy’s eyes and hair and _I wonder who his soulmate is_ is still occupying her mind), but Grover is one of the only people who has been consistently kind to her. She doesn’t want to refuse him of anything. “Sure,” she says.

Percy looks surprised. “Wait, really?”

“I don’t care either way,” she replies, because she doesn’t. “Are we going to go or not?”

Grover looks a little confused, but he starts walking. “Wait, am I missing something here?”

“No,” Annabeth falls into step beside him.

“This is the most you’ve said to me all day and we have, like, five classes together.” Percy says. God, he’s pushy. Clearly it's not his personality that has girls fawning over him.

“Don’t get used to it, Seaweed Brain. I’m only being nice to you because of our shared friend.” 

“Seaweed Brain?!” Behind her, Percy makes an offended noise, and Annabeth has to hide a smile. “And I didn’t say you were being nice.”

Grover’s eyes flit between them like he’s watching a tennis match, an agonized expression on his face. “Guys,” he says, his tone half-warning, half-nervous. 

Annabeth realizes what this must look like to him. Annabeth is hurting and Percy doesn’t know when to shut up. This is a tidal wave pressing against a creaking gate, a barely-contained cosmic disaster. 

“Sorry,” Annabeth murmurs, going quiet and staying that way the rest of the walk. For Grover’s sake.

 

Despite Annabeth’s best efforts, she can’t seem to avoid Percy. She’s become something of an expert on being a phantom, a ghost, something that barely exists, but Percy notices her anyway. He’s always with Grover, too. By mid-November, they’ve attached themselves at the hip and recruited Annabeth as the reluctant third member of their trio.

Annabeth isn’t sure how to feel about this. It’s nice to feel like she belongs somewhere, but the last time she felt like she belonged, it didn’t end well. She’s holding her breath, waiting for the day that everything crashes and burns. 

Annabeth isn’t naive; she knows that she can’t have something without it ending. 

School gets harder, Annabeth gets busier, and she starts forgetting to visit Thalia. Some days are a lot easier. She remembers Luke’s laugh, Thalia’s smirk, nostalgia painting the skies honey gold and hazy. Other days, she cries herself to sleep and wakes up feeling like a drained battery, the sound of the phone still ringing in her ears. 

Those days, she traces letters into her blank forearm, wishing that she could’ve taken Luke’s place and given her friends a chance to work things out. She wishes she could’ve stopped them, stopped Thalia’s mother. She knows there was _something_ she could’ve done. 

Those days, she presses her fingernails into her palm until she can feel pain cut through the clouds. Pain is better than apathy. Anything is better than apathy, better than numb eyes and _it’s your fault it’s your_ _fault it’s your fault_ ringing in her ears. 

Most days, it’s hard for Annabeth to be alone. Luckily, Percy and Grover are always happy to include her in their escapades. 

Thalia sleeps and sleeps and sleeps.

On one particularly bad day, after Annabeth comes back from visiting Thalia and misses the person she used to be with her entire soul, she heads to the elementary school playground and sits on the swing-set. The sky is blue, and if she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend that she’s eight years old again and Thalia and Luke are here and everything is okay.

Annabeth’s phone buzzes, disrupting her trip down memory lane. She has a horrible, tiny grey flip-phone that she rarely ever uses. Very few people even have her number. She’s only more confused when she sees who sent her the text.

From Percy Jackson: _where R U?? Grovers @ dentist. Just us 2day unless U still hate me ;)_

Of course Percy would text like a fifth-grader on IM - no apostrophes, too many abbreviations, completely inappropriate use of emoticons. 

Annabeth is about to text back that she’s not up for doing anything, but she glances toward the play structure and pauses momentarily.

She doesn’t feel like being alone right now and she definitely doesn’t want to go back home. Twisting her mouth to the side, she grips the chain of the swing with one hand and texts back with the other.

To Percy: _The playground on_ _5th._

Percy is quick to reply.

From Percy: _OMW_ :)

Annabeth slips her phone back into her pocket and leans back into the silence.

Percy arrives five minutes later, wearing a green t-shirt and his trademark grin. It falters when he catches sight of Annabeth and she can’t figure out why until she remembers that she hasn’t slept in a day and spent most of the morning in tears. 

Perhaps asking him to come was a bad idea.

It’s too late, though, because Percy sits down in the swing beside her, and it creaks under his weight. “So, what’s going on?” He says it softly, like an invitation to talk about what’s bothering her or an invitation to talk about anything else.

Annabeth gets the idea that Percy won’t push her into saying anything, which is what makes her push off the ground and start talking as she swings back and forth. 

“I used to come here with two of my friends when we were really little. Thalia Grace and Luke Castellan. We would sit here or in the grass and just... talk. For hours.”

Percy doesn’t miss a beat. “Used to?”

Annabeth exhales. Talking about this is somehow simultaneously the hardest thing she’s ever done and far easier than she’d imagined. She’s a broken piece of earth and this, this is the first drop of rain. Annabeth thinks she might be healing.

“They got into a car crash a few months ago. Thalia’s been in a coma ever since. Luke... didn’t make it.”

Percy doesn’t say he’s sorry like Annabeth was expecting. He sits in silence, staring at the sky. Not in awkwardness, more in something like understanding. Annabeth doesn’t feel the need to fill the air between them, just sits and swings and lets Percy think about what he wants to.

“My dad died when I was a baby,” he says finally. Annabeth is slightly startled; she wasn’t expecting this, a truth for a truth. She doesn’t say anything because Percy gave her that same courtesy. 

“Or... I don’t know. He might not be dead. My mom says he’s just lost at sea.” He purses his lips together and doesn’t look at Annabeth. She watches him anyway, the tightening of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the way the sun lights a halo around his skin. “He was in the navy. He and my mom weren’t married, but they were soulmates. Nobody’s told us that he’s dead, but...” he trails off. Annabeth can fill in the blanks. Annabeth thinks it too, that if her mother did die at least she’d know that it wasn’t her fault.

“The unknowing is worse,” she agrees.

Percy nods and turns back toward her, a hint of a smile on his face. “Kind of awful, isn’t it?”

“Not awful, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth answers. “Just complicated.”

This time, Percy’s lips curve upward at the nickname.

They don’t say much for the rest of the day, but they don’t need to. The company is enough. 

 

Percy’s still an insufferable idiot, but Annabeth knows how to deal with him now. Grover’s gotten used to their incessant bantering, knowing now that it’s not the end of the world. She makes a dig, he replies mockingly, she rolls her eyes, and he warns her that her eyes are going to get stuck like that. 

 

Annabeth spends most of her time when he’s not with Percy and Grover at the library now. It’s quiet and usually pretty empty. She can’t stand to be home, not with her stepmother and her two screaming half-brothers. Her father is far more present for them than he ever was for her. Her house looks like a home again, but the scattered lego piece and strewn stuffed animals only serve to make Annabeth feel out of place.

They’re so happy, perfect, normal. Annabeth is a bitter reminder of a woman that exists only inside of a box in the attic; one that she hasn’t seen in almost a decade.

Annabeth is just a freak, a failure, proof of a faulty soulmate system.

Soulmarks appear before your thirteenth birthday. Sometimes Annabeth wishes that there was someone out there for her, but thirteen comes and goes and her forearm stays bare.


	6. six.

_"keep your secrets to yourself, and put me high up on a shelf. look at me when you walk by, just enough to make me cry, make me cry." - steffan argus, make me cry_

 

Annabeth is less melancholy than she is numb. She gets tiny flickers of _feeling_ sometimes: amusement at Grover’s confused questions, contentment at Percy’s laugh, twinges of guilt at Thalia’s bedside and Luke’s grave, fear every time she sees a spider.

Sadness seems to be the easiest thing to feel, though. It settles into her, dust on an unused bookshelf. It’s familiarity: a second skin of loneliness, coated with sadness, topped with a paranoia cherry. 

She’s not one for metaphors. They’re too flowery and the straight and narrow answers of math make more sense to her, but this, her entire life, it feels like a metaphor. Unreal. Detached. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and doesn’t recognize the girl looking back at her, a static shock straight to her heart. 

Thalia wakes up the summer before Annabeth starts high school. 

Annabeth lost hope that anything good could happen to her a long time prior. That was why it came as such a surprise; she’d long since stopped blowing Thalia, Thalia, Thalia into dandelions and believing her wish would come true. 

She’s sitting by Thalia’s bedside when it happens. The hospital is more familiar to her than her own house, but she can’t call it any kind of home. The walls are too white, too barren. It always smells like antiseptic. The faint beeping and buzzing in the background doesn’t take attention away from the girl lying in the middle of the room, where she’s been for the past two years. 

Percy and Grover are with her. It’s not Grover’s first time; he remembers Thalia and sometimes, when Annabeth doesn’t feel quite brave enough to face Thalia alone, his soft encouragement and quiet presence is enough. Today, it isn’t. Today, something feels different. There is a breeze in the air, some sort of static electricity that is putting her on edge.

( It took a lion’s courage to ask Percy to come with her. It made her feel weak, like she was relying too much on other people and that wasn’t how she operated. It struck at her pride, the thing she held dearest to herself. But. This was the boy who had attached himself to her, broken pieces and all. The boy that had told her about his missing father a year ago and then cried to her over the phone when he returned. And again when his father revealed his entirely new family, who quietly whispered that he didn’t want to be replaced. Who let her crash on his couch when she didn’t want to go home, who didn’t ask questions but checked on her before he went to bed, draped a blanket over her when he thought she was asleep. 

In the span of the past year, Annabeth had gotten to know Percy a little better, and in return, allowed him to get to know her a little better too. So she asked, and he agreed, and she was more relieved than she would’ve liked to admit. )

Percy and Grover leave to get some snacks from the vending machine and she barely remembers murmuring goodbye as she takes Thalia’s hand in hers, a string of unsaid promises passing between them.

And then. 

She feels Thalia’s fingers twitch, but she’s not sure whether she imagined it or not. That happens sometimes: Annabeth thinks that Thalia’s moved, ever so slightly, and she’s always disappointed to find that she hasn’t.

It used to happen a lot more, back when Annabeth whispered hope like a hymn under her breath.

But this time, it doesn’t stop. Thaila’s fingers wrap around her wrist and her eyes open with an audible gasp escaping from her mouth. Annabeth can’t process it at first, not until a loud and unending beeping noise begins to fill the room and Thalia tries to sit up, her chest rising raggedly as though she’s forgotten how to breathe.

“Thalia!” Annabeth says, halfway between a whisper and a shout. 

Before anything else can happen, Grover and Percy burst through the door, followed by a frazzled doctor in a white coat, his eyebrows pinched together in confusion. 

Percy says, “Annabeth! Are you okay?” and then his eyes land on Thalia and his mouth forms a little ‘o.’

“Annabeth.” Thalia sounds so, so scared. “What’s going on?”

“Thalia-“

“Where’s Luke?”

Annabeth can feel her heart break into a hundred pieces from sadness, even though it isn’t a physically possible thing. As though she can see the melancholy in Annabeth’s eyes, Thalia grips her wrist tighter. “Annabeth-“

The doctor interrupts her. “Please clear the room.”

“Wait-“ Annabeth says, at the same time that Thalia desperately answers, “No, please-“

“Ma’am, you’re going to need to leave,” the doctor repeats, gesturing for a nurse to take her out.

“But she can’t- Annabeth!”

It’s too late. The nurse gently rugs on Annabeth’s arm, separating her from Thalia’s grip, and leads her outside the hospital room. The last thing she remembers is the slight panic and overwhelming fear in Thalia’s eyes. On one hand, Thalia’s surrounded by doctors who know how to take care of her far better than Annabeth could. On the other, she’s surrounded by strangers, and Annabeth has been let down by too many people she knows to even begin to trust strangers.

The nurse takes her and Grover and Percy to the waiting room and informs them that they can wait for Thalia here, if they so choose. 

Grover and Percy offer to wait with her, but she sends them home. It was hard enough to let them see her with Thalia, asleep. She doesn’t want them to know how weak she’ll be with Thalia, awake. It would be too many hits to her pride.

She sleeps there. It’s not like her parents will care if she’s gone, anyway. She wakes up with an aching back and has a moment to regain her senses before the nurse comes through the door with Thalia in tow. Thalia looks like she’s been crying, red in her eyes and the tip of her nose. _Where’s Luke?_ Annabeth remembers. She wishes it had been her to tell Thalia what happened. 

As tumultuous as their friendship had been, as much as Thalia and Luke had fought before his death, they were still soulmates. They shared a deeper bond of friendship than Annabeth would ever know. Thalia had woken up from a two year coma only to find that her best friend was gone.

Annabeth can only imagine what that is like. Similar to what she felt when her mom left, she she supposes, not that she remembers what it felt like anymore. There is a gaping, apathetic hole in her heart where the pain used to be. Sometimes, the apathy is worse.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Are you allowed to leave?”

Thalia nods in reply and weakly walks toward Annabeth, out of earshot of the nurse. “Is he really...?”

Dead. She’s asking if he’s dead. “I’m sorry,” Annabeth answers. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” All the apologies she wasn’t able to give a year ago spill from her lips.

“And my mom?” Thalia says weakly.

Annabeth shakes her head.

Thalia lets out on long exhale, like she’s blowing smoke from a cigarette. “The doctor told me that they found my brother.”

This comes to Annabeth as an electric shock. “I thought your brother was dead.” 

“I thought so too,” Thalia explains, voice rough. “Turns out my father took him to live with him and his new wife. But they contacted him, and he’s coming to live here now. With me. In my mom’s house.”

“Wow,” says Annabeth, because she doesn’t really know what else to say in this sort of situation.

“Yeah,” Thalia agrees, and then, “Everything’s gone to shit, Annabeth. I don’t- nothing’s the same anymore. I’m so confused. Everything’s changed. You’ve changed. Look at you, you’re so much older.”

“So I’ve grown,” Annabeth says. “I’m still the same old me.”

“No,” Thalia replies. “Look at you. Look at your eyes. They’re so much sadder.”

 


	7. seven.

_"but still we laugh, we cry, we fall, we get high, just like we were kids, just like we were kids. and when i'm feeling small you get me through it all, just like we were kids, just like we were kids again." - kids again, artist vs. poet_

 

Thalia settles in okay. Not spectacularly, because she’s doesn’t know anything that’s happened in the past two years and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes **,** she forgets how to breathe. But by most standards, she’s doing okay **.**  

Annabeth tries to come around to Thalia’s house as often as she can to catch her up on everything she’s missed, but she starts school and Thalia starts trying to get her GED and they’re both so busy. It’s a lot. But Thalia’s here and awake and alive, so it’s better. 

Thalia’s brother arrives a few days after Thalia gets out of the hospital. His name is Jason Grace, and he used to live in California. At first glance, he looks nothing like Thalia; there’s a stark contrast between Thalia’s spiky black hair and Jason’s sculpted blonde head, Thalia’s studded leather jacket and Jason’s Adidas Superstars, Thalia’s hard-pressed scowl and Jason’s easy and controlled smile. If Annabeth looks like a little closer, though, she can see the similarities. Their eyes are the same electric blue with the same strong gaze. Their jaws are set with the same determination. Even the way they stand mirrors each other.

There is no doubt in Annabeth’s mind that they were sculpted from the same marble.

Jason goes to the same high-school as Annabeth: the high-school that Thalia had gone to, the high-school that Luke had gone to. He doesn’t know anyone there **,** so she incorporates him into her lunch table. It’s her and Percy and Grover and Jason, and then they all make new friends and it starts growing and growing and growing.

Percy joins the swim team. Annabeth is minutely surprised. She knows that he uses swimming like a lifeline, but she’d never imagined him as a jock. Suddenly, he’s back to being the topic of conversation and the target of crushes, this green-eyed athlete with _biceps_ and the _dreamiest smile_. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s such a kind person, and he’s the epitome of an Ancient Greek hero: high morality, paired with courage and a pretty face **.**  

It infuriates her for a reason she can’t explain, especially because he turns down every date with a good-natured smile. 

“He covers his wrist with a band when he’s swimming,” Silena Beauregard whispers to her during a test one day, “Nobody knows who his soulmate is.”

She scowls as a reply, a warning for Silena to stop speaking because they’re taking a test and Annabeth is not about to get in trouble for talking during a test. Silena, for some inexplicable reason, smiles as she turns back to her own paper. 

Grover, on the other hand, joins the environmental club. And Jason joins the football team. He has his own fan club, but Jason is different, too statuesque, too perfect. Where Percy is roguish and real, Jason is all charm and smiles.

High school is a puzzle that Annabeth isn’t sure she wants to solve. She figures out that staying busy is a good way to avoid thinking about the darkness that occupies her mind, so she fills her schedule with AP classes, joins the debate team and the mathletes and the chess club and a number of other groups around the school.

(She learns about old architecture in History one day, these buildings that have been standing for hundreds of thousands of years. Permanence is a concept that Annabeth doesn’t know how to believe in, but these ancient structures ignite a small flutter of hope. 

This is what she wants to do: create buildings that will outlast her, stay strong and beautiful long after she’s crumbled into dust.)

(She knows what people say about her. She’s a bitch, as stormy and cold as her eyes. She’s a know-it-all with pride sewn into her veins and a constant scowl. 

The first time a boy tells her to smile, she threatens to turn him black and blue in places he doesn’t want to lose use of.)

Annabeth is: fifteen, a bitch, cold, proud, and she’s forgotten how to feel a goddamn thing past the dark apathy. 

So she gets through life, day by day by day. And their lunch table slowly fills UP. Piper McLean, Jason’s new girlfriend, his soulmate.  She’s beautiful in the way of a lightning bolt; admirable from afar, deadly up close. Leo Valdez, Jason’s new best friend, the class clown who never stops cracking jokes. Annabeth meets Frank Zhang during math class. He’s sweet and clumsy and well-meaning, the sort of person Annabeth never minds surrounding herself with. Grover meets the elusive Juniper printed on his arm, and even Annabeth can see how achingly perfect they are for each other. And with Percy comes a few cheerleaders: Bianca Di Angelo (plus her little brother, Nico), Zoë Nightshade, a girl named Phoebe, and a few others that Annabeth doesn’t know.

It’s so crowded all of a sudden. Her little trio multiplies into a rowdy group of friends and it’s hard to feel lonely when there is always someone to talk to. 

She’s still closest with Percy and Grover, thought they spend less time together now. And Thalia, but Thalia... Thalia is different. 

Annabeth supposes she herself is different too. 

It’s hard not to change when everything around you is changing. Annabeth feels like she becomes an entirely new person every seven years when her cells die out and get replaced. Seven by seven by seven. She’s not sure she likes it. Sometimes she feels like a planet in orbit, and sometimes she feels like a tumultuous sun.

Only one thing remains sure: her arm remains frustratingly, blissfully, completely blank.


	8. eight.

_"so sad, so sad, i could never make you stay. too bad, too bad, i could never walk away." - so sad, so sad, varsity_

 

Annabeth is waiting for Percy and Grover outside the school when she bumps into Jason and Nico. 

They’re an odd friendship. Annabeth wouldn’t have expected it, but then again, she wouldn’t have expected any of them to be friends. 

Jason waves when he sees Annabeth, a charismatic smile on his lips and his tattoo on display. He is a gold-plated boy with a platinum-plated girlfriend, high school sweethearts intertwined by the ink on their arms **.** Nico bounces after him, the world still shining hope into his eyes.

Annabeth doesn’t remember a time when she looked like that, six years old and wishing for a prince to come save her.

Piper always says that Nico has a crush on Annabeth, but she doesn’t see it. Annabeth is as kind to him as she is to everyone else; it’s not her that Nico looks at with hero worship. She wouldn’t deserve a pedestal like that, anyway.

“Hello,” Annabeth greets them as they come within hearing distance.

“How’s it going?” Jason asks.

“Not bad.” And this isn’t a lie, for once. Sometimes, she still feels lonely, like a patchwork of bruises and lies, sewn together by people who didn’t stay. But things are better. She’s busy and things are better. Better, better, better. “You?”

“Same,” he answers, and then, “How’d you do on the bio quiz?”

They make small talk for a few minutes, Nico occasionally inputting his own cheerful opinion. 

It’s not long before Percy pushes his way through the doors, joining them with an ever-present goofy grin. They stay just a little bit longer with Jason and his perfect smile and Nico with his hero-worshipping eyes, until Grover sends her a text that he’s staying to help Juniper with something and to go on without him.

They say their goodbyes and head down the street, littered with fallen leaves and memories. 

“How’s Thalia?” Percy asks, eyes flashing nervously. It’s not that Percy and Thalia hate each other, but they’re both charged with different sorts of electricity. She’s not sure they know how to coexist. 

“Better,” Annabeth answers, and she leaves it at that. “How’s your mom?”

“I think she met someone,” Percy says, an admittance. “His name is Paul Blofis. He's not her soulmate, but whenever he's around, she smiles more."

Annabeth pauses, brows crinkling into her forehead. “Excuse me, Blowfish?”

Percy shakes his head. “No. Blowfish would’ve been better. _Blofis._ He’s an actor. He teaches drama at Goodman.”

Acting is an impractical career, but Annabeth isn’t going to comment on the fact that this _Paul’s_ dreams led him to the career of a high school teacher. What matters is Sally Jackson’s happiness, because if anyone deserves that, it’s her. Except. “You don’t like him?”

Percy wrinkles his nose, an action that should be incredibly unattractive. Should. “It’s not that I don’t like him. He’s a nice guy, really, I’m just... not sure if he’s good enough yet. I think my mom's worried that I disapprove of him not being her soulmate, but it's not that. I don't care if he's her soulmate; I just need to know that he’s good enough.”

Annabeth can understand that. She holds Sally Jackson in high regard too, the mother she wishes she had. “The soulmate system is a load of shit, anyway.”

When Annabeth looks over at Percy, he seems adrift in thought. “Yeah,” he says, distracted. 

“Don’t think too hard,” Annabeth warns. “You might hurt your tiny little seaweed brain.”

This snaps Percy out of whatever rain cloud he was under. “ _Haha,”_ he says. “Fuck off.” 

But he’s smiling, and that’s the most important thing.

 

Freshmen year passes, for the most part, without incident.

Over the summer, Thalia finishes her GED and decides she wants to go to college abroad, travel halfway across the world to some country that even Annabeth’s never heard of.

Annabeth can’t deny that she’s hurt, but Thalia says that she needs a fresh start, something away from Luke and her mother and the entirety of her childhood. Annabeth can understand that; if given the choice, Annabeth thinks she might want to start over too. 

Sophomore year begins.

Most nights, Annabeth lingers in Percy’s apartment after school, because going home means facing her parents means facing her loneliness means facing everything by herself. Here, there’s Percy, there’s Sally, there are fresh baked cookies with blue chocolate chips.

They sit across each other at the kitchen table, buried in homework with a plate of cookies between them. It’s harder for the overwhelming sense of _alone_ to attach itself to her body when she’s with Percy and his dumb comments and his smile. 

( Annabeth has never, never, never believed in love. Everything touched by love withers and dies and disappears. Her mother. Luke. Thalia. )

( “Soulmates are fucking stupid,” Thalia says crassly before she leaves. “Look at where it got my mom. Luke’s mom. Your dad. Luke and I. There was never going to be a Luke and I.” )

There are some secrets that Annabeth keeps hidden from herself. She’s not ready to open up her scope of emotions **.**  

( Her mother sends her a letter in the mail when she’s 17 years old and a junior in high school. It’s been 10 years since she’s seen her mother, heard from her mother, known anything about her mother. 10 years since she stopped believing in love. 10 years since she’s felt whole. The letter comes pressed envelope embroidered with a golden _Athena_. Annabeth considers tossing it in the trash. )

“I don’t understand when I’ll ever need trigonometry in real life,” Percy complains, dropping his pencil onto the table and burying his head in his hands.

( Instead, she opens it carefully, not sure which she wants to do more: smile, or scream. )

“Maybe you won’t use trigonometry specifically,” Annabeth says. “But solving problems is like a workout for your brain. You’ll end up stronger in the long run.”

( _Annabeth,_

 _I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry for never coming back. I didn’t know how to look you in the eye knowing that I’d failed you. You have a happier, better family now, I know, but I want to make amends. I_ _want to invite you to come stay with me this summer._

 _Athena._ )

“Who cares about the long run? It’s incredibly painful in the right now,” Percy replies. An smile almost graces Annabeth’s lips. Almost.

( Annabeth doesn’t come out of her room for dinner. )

“You can’t live in the present forever. Sometimes, you have to think about the future, or else the future is going to smack you in the face out of nowhere,” Annabeth says.

( Sometimes, you have to think about the past, or else the past is going to smack you in the face out of nowhere. )


	9. nine.

_"baby, you look happier, you do. my friends told me one day i'll feel it too. and until then i'll smile to hide the truth, but i know i was happier with you." - happier, ed sheeran_

 

Sometimes, Annabeth feels like she’s spent her entire life wasting away. Seconds turn into minutes turn into hours of time and time and time that she’s not using to forge herself a future. 

Sometimes, sadness settles. The isolation.  The apathy. She doesn’t know how to remove this creature, so deeply ingrained into her skin.

Sometimes, she looks into the mirror and doesn’t recognize the gaunt-faced girl who looks back at her. The line between dream and reality is blurred, like she’s walking on a tightrope between being in control and the empty air of the unknown. 

Annabeth wishes she could have a fresh start from herself, shed every part of her like a snakeskin and begin from scratch. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. She knows that’s not how it works.

Everything is too much, sometimes: school, college, Percy’s eyes, her mother, the blank space on her forearm. 

Annabeth has never needed a soulmate. She repeats it like a mantra: she doesn’t need a knight in shining armor, someone to hold her hand, someone to make her smile **.** She forgets that _need_ and _want_ are two very different things. 

There’s an art that Annabeth has mastered, a way she protects herself, a way to never leave too much of herself with one person. She gives out tiny fragment by tiny fragment: Thalia and Luke go to Grover, her mark-less arm goes to Thalia, and her mother goes to Piper.   
  


( She doesn’t think about how Percy has collected up almost all of these things and more over the years. That doesn’t mean anything **.** )  
  


“You should go see her,” Piper says after Annabeth shows her the letter. 

“She left,” Annabeth points out. “I hardly think she has any right to try and mend things.”

“Look, you know how much I dislike my mom-“ This is an understatement. Piper’s mother, like her movie star father, is always gone, but unlike her father, Aphrodite tends be _overbearing_ , even when she’s not around. At least her father lives in the same continent as Piper, most of the time. Aphrodite abandoned her daughter for the cobbled streets of Paris almost immediately after Piper’s birth. “-but she’s my mom and I’m glad I know her. Give your mother a chance. Maybe she’ll surprise you.”

Annabeth considers this, considers her mother, considers her 7-year **-** old self waiting by the window for her mother to return, considers the years she’s spent forgetting that her mother was ever a mother.

“I’ll think about it,” she says finally.  
  
  
( And she does. She thinks and she thinks and she thinks, and finally, she picks up the phone to make a call. )

 

The day before Annabeth leaves to spend the summer with her mother, she agrees to spend the day at the beach with her friends. 

Jason and Piper wear their soulmarks proudly, publicly, unafraid to announce themselves to the world. The rest of them take more caution to hide their tattoos under sleeves and bracelets. 

The day before Annabeth leaves to spend the summer with her mother, Percy loses his bracelet in the ocean, and Annabeth gets a flash of the _Rachel_ scrawled across his arm before he finds it again.

For some inexplicable reason, her heart sinks down to her stomach.

 

Annabeth makes amends with her mother over the summer. Her mother has the same smile, same intelligent humor, the same grey eyes. She promises to visit again next summer.

When Annabeth returns to New York, everything has changed.

Annabeth doesn’t want to be jealous. She doesn’t have a right to be jealous. Rachel is gorgeous, charismatic, and she’s attached herself right at Percy’s hip. Rachel is perfectly nice and has a wicked sense of deadpan humor and Annabeth doesn’t want to hate her. Rachel is Percy’s soulmate. Annabeth doesn’t have a soulmate. That’s probably for the best. Annabeth is broken and battered, and something inside of her doesn’t work quite right anymore. Maybe it never did.

Everything has changed.

Anyone could’ve seen Frank and Hazel coming, including Annabeth. It still takes her by surprise, somehow.

Everything has changed.

College is the best thing that’s ever happened to Thalia.

Everything has changed.

Perhaps she’s exaggerating. Grover is the same. Piper is the same. Annabeth is undeniably, horribly, frustratingly static. 

It’s easier if she stays away from Percy, stays away from Rachel, stays away from the world. 

It’s easy enough to throw herself into school. There are clubs, tests, her college applications. It’s easy to fall into a stupor of work. It’s easy to stop feeling jealous by not feeling anything at all.

She finishes her applications and sends them out. Everyone talks about their futures. Annabeth’s ambition battles with her inability to imagine a future where she is happy. She resolved to keep throwing herself in her work.

 

(Annabeth feels numb. Anything is better than apathy.)


	10. ten

_"i must be honest, i have a lot of pride, but i'm broken inside. i guess this sounds like another sad love song. i can't get over how it all went wrong." - khalid, another sad love song_

 

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

 

It’s almost ironic when Annabeth gets the call, except this time her father is out of town and her stepmother is out of the house and her half-siblings are at some friend’s house.

She’s sitting at the table, finding x, y, z. She likes math because it has a set answer. There is no personal interpretation that leaves her wandering between the strings of the universe, trying to find something nonexistent. 

This time, when the phone rings, she’s the one that takes the call. “Hello?”

This time, it’s Sally Jackson. She’s hysterical. “Annabeth?”

“Sally? What’s wrong?”

“I-it’s Percy,” she chokes out. “The hospital just called. He’s been in an accident.”

 _That’s my family,_ Annabeth thinks, and it feels all too familiar. Prickles go down her arms, her heart breaks open, everything is pouring out of her. Green eyes. Laughter. _Seaweed brain,_ she says, and the sides of his mouth crinkle up in a smile. 

( Percy looked so young, curled up beside Annabeth on her couch, hands splayed on the coffee table, completely vulnerable, laying himself out in front of her. _My dad’s alive,_ he whispered, and, _I don’t want to be replaced._ ) 

Annabeth is such an idiot for avoiding him. 

Sally tells her that Percy was driving home from practice with two of the cheerleaders, that a drunk driver ran through a stop sign at 108 miles an hour and knocked them right off the road, that one of them was pronounced dead on the scene, Zoe Nightshade, and Bianca Di Angelo is in a coma, and Percy’s in critical condition, and to please, please find Grover, oh my god, find Grover.

It’s all static to Annabeth, but she hears herself tell Sally that it’s going to be okay, that she’s going to be there soon, to just hold on, she’s going to find Grover, Percy’s going to be okay.

It’s almost ironic. Everyone Annabeth loves leaves, one way or another. 

Annabeth drives Grover to the hospital. He can’t stop crying and Sally can’t stop crying and Annabeth still can’t feel anything at all, so she holds onto both their hands and prays to a God she’s never believed in.

Another black dress. Two more funerals. The universe has a cruel sense of humor.

Nico stares at his sister’s headstone with emptiness in his eyes, and Annabeth wants to tell him that she knows exactly how she feels. He looks gaunt, skinny, pale, like he hasn’t been eating or crying or doing much of anything, and Annabeth wants to tell him that she understands.

Instead, she goes back to the hospital and closes her eyes to the hum of the heart monitor and takes Percy’s hand in hers, mumbling half-coherent conversations to his closed eyes. 

_You can make it, Percy. Please hold on._

_Please come back._


	11. eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall im so sorry i forgot that i hadnt posted this chapter so it's comin to you suuuuuuper late. also anaheim is such a quality song and a quality percabeth song just sayin u should go listen to it

_"i'd give anything to stop time and drive around anaheim at sun down, to teach my mind to put you first. here you are, a hero, you wanna be my new home, but baby let up, i won’t ever recognize these roads ‘cause i am lost, but not in you." - anaheim, nicole zefanya_

 

The difference is that Percy wakes up. Annabeth barely leaves his side for the week or so he’s asleep, only eating and sleeping when she’s prompted by Sally or Grover. School isn’t a priority until he wakes up again, until she sees him open his eyes, and it’s not like her family gives a shit where she is. 

It’s so easy to talk about everything when he can’t hear her. This is a church. He’s a priest. She’s confessing her sins. Her lack of a soulmate. How she doesn’t deserve one anyway. And she’s so sorry for falling in love with Percy, and love is a strong word, so maybe it’s not that, but it’s something, and it’s her fault because she knows he’s not her soulmate, but she can’t help it. She can deal with it anyway. Rachel’s great, really. She can fucking deal with it. She’s-

Mid-sentence, Percy cuts her off by squeezing her hand. “Wise Girl,” he says weakly, and Annabeth promptly breaks into tears.  
  
“You’re okay,” she says first, and then, “If you ever scare me like that again, Seaweed Brain, I will kill you.”

She’s too relieved to feel mortified about everything Percy might’ve heard her say.

Percy laughs, and then winces. “Sorry,” he says. “What happened? Where are Zoe and Bianca?”

The funerals are so, so vivid in her memory. Luke. Zoe. Bianca. Sometimes, she feels like it should’ve been her.

“Percy...”

The fact that he can read her expression so easily says something about them. Maybe it should scare Annabeth. “No,” he says. “I killed them?”

“No,” Annabeth starts, but before she can finish speaking, the room starts flooding with nurses and doctors and someone pulls her away and Percy’s guilty expression will forever be ingrained into her memory.

 

( Annabeth comes back the next day after school, catching a brief fraction of a conversation between Nico and Percy in Percy’s hospital room.

“You killed her!” Nico’s voice is laced with poison and grief. “You promised you’d protect her, and then you killed her!”

“Nico, I’m-“

“No,” he cuts Percy off. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Nico storms out of the hospital room without so much a glance in Annabeth’s direction, his eyes stone cold.

She follows him out, resolving to come back tomorrow instead. Percy has enough on his plate without having to discuss her ridiculous confessions of love as well. )

 

Annabeth comes back again, again, again. She backs out each time.

 

( “You have to talk to him eventually,” Piper tells her at one point. When Annabeth feigns confusion, Piper fixes her with an unimpressed look, and Annabeth gives in.

“I didn’t think I was that obvious.”

“You weren’t. I’m just perceptive. You should talk to him.”

“There’s not much to talk about.”

“That’s what you think.” 

Annabeth sends her a confused look, but Piper changes the conversation after that. )

 

It takes five days for Annabeth to finally pluck up the courage to sit down by Percy’s bed and speak to him.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he replies, and then, “Did you tell me you loved me, or was that an incredibly vivid fever dream?”

So he’d heard it.

“I’m sorry,” Annabeth says. “I know Rachel’s your soulmate. I know you could never have feelings for me. I don’t want to ruin our friendship with this. I’ll get over it.”

“Annabeth,” Percy replies, and then stops. He’s silent for a moment, like he’s trying to decide what to say next, and Annabeth is already bracing herself for the rejection. It’ll sting, but it’ll be a good push back to the reality that she doesn’t have a soulmate and she doesn’t want one or need one or-

Percy flips over both his arms. For a moment, Annabeth doesn’t understand, and then the realization hits her. They’re blank. Both of them are blank.

“I don’t love her. Rachel, I mean. I don’t love Rachel. I couldn’t. My heart’s been set on someone else for years. So I told her that, and she agreed that we should get our tattoos removed.”

“But-“ Annabeth doesn’t know what to say. “You’re soulmates.”

“Who cares about soulmates? Soulmarks can’t tell us who to fall in love with. It’s not about fate, Annabeth, it’s about choices. We should be able to choose who we want to be with. And I don’t want to be with her. I want to be with you.”

( Thalia’s name on Luke’s arm. Luke’s name on Thalia’s. _I’m not in love with Luke,_ Thalia says.

Her mother leaves. Her father hides the _Athena_ scrawled over his skin. _Sometimes, the system is wrong._

 _I don’t think they were soulmates,_ Percy tells her, eyes glistening. _My parents._ )

Annabeth must be quiet for a little too long, because Percy sounds nervous when he says, “Annabeth? Did I freak you out? If this isn’t what you want-“

“Shut up, Seaweed Brain,” she replies, and then, “Can I kiss you?”

Percy’s grin is brilliant when he nods.

So she does.

And she does.

And she does.

 

Love can’t save her. Love can’t save him. Love can’t remove the sadness she wears, love can’t bring his father back, love can’t bring her mother back. Love can’t heal all wounds. But he’s choosing her and she’s choosing him and maybe she’s not being saved by a knight in shining armor, but she can save herself. Maybe this isn’t happily ever after, but it’s certainly worth a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaand it's over! wow! thank u so much for reading this, it was quite the adventure. i literally worked on this for like. a yr. bc i suck. but its done ayyyyyy


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